So I've been doing my social research interviewing since Jan 2nd, so more than two months. Jan was slow, Feb even slower, which is fine, but this first week of March has been much more mental, with two projects on the go now...
It's the first time in over 4 years that I've had to actually get up off my arse and 'go out' to work, which has been a bit of a struggle, but this type of work is pretty much the easiest way I've got right now of earning a few hundred extra squid a month, which is what I need!
The pros...
The money!
It's not great money, but the extra is keeping the monkey off my back for now, and should be enough to see me through until i retire, assuming I don't get sick of it, which could happen.
The easiest money is being paid for training, the training is generally terrible, being talked at, but, hey, if someone wants to pay me to sit there, fine!
And I get paid for driving too, only £4 an hour for that part, but that's hardly work.
The overall income is an odd hybrid of piece work per interview and then an hourly rate and expenses.
It's easy on the brain thing
It really is not difficult work. Once you've got your head around the admin systems then it's just about being organised - making appointments for interviews and keeping decent records.
Interviewing is just following computer prompts.
flexible hours
I am freelance so I can take work or leave it. The work is in 'points' for various different projects. You typically get 22 households per point and around 6 weeks to complete all the interviews. Some people work several points at once, I think for me, around 2-3 being live at any one time is going to work, that's around 3-4 days a week.
Interviewing a diverse array of people
I've only done around 20 interviews so far, but I've met a diverse array of people already. Mainly retired given the nature of one survey I'm doing, but it's interesting to get some insight into how people live.
Future surveys should give me MORE diverse respondents, hopefully. ATM it has been a little middle-upper class, maybe I should be careful what I wish for!
Getting to know the area better
I'm getting to know the roads around here - yesterday I took a drive out towards Hay and Brecon, right on the border with Wales, and drove around a few lanes, really interesting to get an insight into the local geography, which is stunning for the most part.
I go every direction in the course of a month - east, north, west and south, within a 40 mile radius.
The cons...
Busy periods, especially early on
I have to be briefed (a daily or two daily training session) before I start any project. So ATM I'm keen to say yes to any briefing, but that means I have to work that project straight after, so this means I'm already busier than I'd like to be, and this is only going to get worse over the next few months.
Once I've been briefed on a dozen projects then I can pick and choose depending on which are either the easiest or the best value for money, I imagine they each have their specific pros and cons!
The pay is not great
It works out at just above minimum wage, which is shit given my level of education, but hey, it is stress-free and for now at least, interesting, and thanks to my passive income I don't need to be earning a huge amount of money either, so this is better than earning double the rate but getting ground down.
evening and weekend work
One is obliged to door knock evenings and weekends if one can't get in contact with respondents during weekdays, and of course if people work you have to book evening and weekend appointments.
The problem here is that with a point of 22 address, of which you'll probably get agreement from around 16, you can only really do one evening interview a week, meaning you can end up with several evenings during the week booked out.
This could be the limiting factor to how much work I take on, I really don't like evening work, and it would be the main reason I maybe quit, we'll have to see how it goes!
stress
This only happens if I book interviews too tightly... it happened the other day, I had one at 9.00, but it ended up being quite a long winded affair, as they had a lot to say, and I was constantly worried about being late for me next interview...
In the end it was fine and I even got a 30 minute lunch break, but it's still better to do these one at a time with nice long gaps in between!
I could do better, but...
This job is way below what I could do given my intelligence and skills set - for starters I could do a much better job designing the damned surveys, and the fact that someone is probably getting paid £40K + a year to do this worse than me is grating.
HOWEVER, those kind of jobs, if I could get one, tend to be a) in London which would be expensive to move to and b) full time and at least partially in the office.
RN I am living cheaply on the Welsh borders and have flexible hours in this job, I mean I could arrange things to take a month off, for example, and then another one later on in the year, and for now I think the low pay is an OK trade off for being able to live around here and have flexibility.
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